Here's Why People Don't Believe In Climate Change

More than one-quarter of Americans are climate change skeptics,
according to a new report released by the Public Religion
Research Institute. These deniers don't believe that the planet
Earth's climate is changing, even though
97% of scientists believe it is.

"I hunt a lot, and last winter I froze my butt off," wrote one
respondent.

Here is a chart from the report showing this and other reasons
that skeptics gave for doubting climate change. The survey is
based on telephone interviews conducted among a random sample of
3,022 adults living in the US (see the full report
here).

The second most common response was that temperatures are not
rising because of human actions, instead they are just
fluctuating as part of a larger natural cycle. "I think there are
just trends where the temperature goes up and down as part of a
natural cycle every couple of hundred years," said one
respondent.

In fact, there is
plenty of evidence that humans have contributed to changes in
global temperatures. The chart below, published by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, includes a series of
graphs, each presenting two models. The purple stripes show the
climate changes we'd expect from only natural events, like solar
variations, and the pink stripes show the changes in a model that
includes human actions, like burning fossil fuels.

If human actions had no effect on climate, the purple and pink
stripes would occupy the same space on each graph. Instead,
they're different in almost every case, meaning human actions
have a definite effect on climate change. Most tellingly, the
black lines on each graph represent the changes we've observed in
real life — not just in models — and they match up with the pink
stripe in every case.

The third most popular response, with 12% of deniers selecting
it, is that there is not enough scientific evidence to back up
the claim that the Earth is getting hotter.

"I don’t see any real evidence of that in the news media," said
one participant. "The entire scientific community really appears
divided and scattered about the entire issue."

A small minority of skeptics (4%) responded that they have
alternative theories about global warming. Around 2% said they
believe God is in control and 5% believe that data and news
reports showing global warming are propaganda.